


The Last of Us

by aldiara



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Drabble Sequence, F/M, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Multi, Post-Betrayal, Shoebox Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldiara/pseuds/aldiara
Summary: It's the year the Marauders end, and everyone is having an absolutely shit time.





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> These are [Shoebox Project Marauders](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Shoebox_Project/). Written for [Drabble Day 2019](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/drabbleday/).

The problem with Lily being mad was that James was still totally, creepily, masochistically, one hundred percent into it. Even if it wasn’t the cute kind of mad (Lily didn’t really do cute-mad). Even if it was the flaming enraged goddess kind of mad where James was half afraid that he might actually get murdered or hexed into something irreversible, and half incredibly turned on. It was a sickness. It was disturbing and terrible and awesome. 

“I hate that this is happening. I hate this timing. I hate that we’re having this baby, James.”

Except when it was just terrible.

*

Part of why everything was so horrible was that James himself was pretty much constantly faking it. Sirius had said that was okay and everyone with babies coming probably did that because nobody had a clue; but what the fuck did Pads know, it wasn’t like any babies were accidentally going to pop out of him or Moony.

James didn’t mean to be cynical about it. He wanted to believe it. Better yet, he wanted not to feel this way, always completely at a loss.

“It’s going to be okay, Lily,” he told her helplessly. “It’s got to be, right?”

*

It was okay when they got a breather and some sleep. When they were not constantly moving or one of them out for the Order and the other pacing furrows into the worn rug until they heard the door. It was okay in the early dawn, when they moved dreamily together, still half-asleep as they made love. Even the strange, lumpy, kicking bump was okay then, because it was only part of Lily, safe, abstract.

But someday soon it would emerge into this world of war and terror, and how would things be okay then?

James just didn’t bloody know.


	2. After

“When all else fails, pick up smoking.”

It’s advice from Peter, of all people; just some dumb line he was trying at some party, and it didn’t work then, and it doesn’t, it turns out, work now.

Remus tries, but his metabolism isn’t made for drugs: not weed, not speed, not even good old regular tobacco, it turns out. He just wanted something to do with his hands, something that would keep him from feeling so stupid and crushed, tearing up more pictures or burning his stupid shoebox full of memories. 

Sirius is in Azkaban, and nothing works. That’s all.

*

Amusingly, Sirius is probably laughing right now. Azkaban and all; what are walls and Dementors to Sirius Black? He’ll be laughing at how long Remus held on and how incredibly stupid he was and how many nights he spent telling himself it wasn’t true and he had to believe, but in the end there’s never really anything to believe in, is there? Not for him, dumb love-struck Moony, dumber than Peter, who was loyal enough to die, at least.

He waits for the moon with a crushing, savage pleasure. The moon will undo him, tear him apart. 

He can’t wait.


End file.
